With a national championship in its crosshairs, No. 9 NC State women’s tennis started its journey to a potential title with a sweeping 7-0 victory over SMU in its season-opening match in Raleigh.
As one of the top teams in the nation, the Wolfpack (1-0) played like it, bringing out the brooms on its opening day. After cruising through the doubles round, NC State dominated singles on the way to the perfect 7-0 win. In fact, the red-and-white only dropped a single set to the Mustangs (0-2) by the end of the day.
Apart from the sweep, the most important part of the day for the Wolfpack was its debut of its three freshmen. With each one critical to the team’s success in 2024, they got their first official taste of action in the early doubles round — a point NC State rarely ever loses.
“Doubles is important to our identity,” said assistant coach David Secker. “… Essentially we had one freshman on each court. And they’ve got to learn how the doubles runs, what we’re doing and kind of the tempo of it. It’s very important to get that right. And I feel that they did a pretty good job of that today.”
Those freshmen helped pave the way to the Pack’s quick 1-0 start, and later, the overall win. The No. 7 pair of freshman Maddy Zampardo and senior Amelia Rajecki pulled off a dominant 6-1 win on court two. However, the No. 9 pair of sophomore Anna Zyryanova and senior Sophie Abrams beat them to the first doubles win of the season with a 6-1 victory of their own.
Singles went just as smoothly for NC State as the doubles. Blink twice and you would have missed No. 19 Abrams dismantle her opponent 6-1, 6-1. Shortly after, one of the nation’s best players — No. 3 Rajecki — won 6-4, 6-2 to put the Wolfpack in clinch position.
Then, in her first official day on the job, No. 116 Zampardo clinched the victory at 4-0 with a 6-3, 6-4 win on court three. Zampardo, who traveled to watch the team in its National Championship match last year, was eager to finally hit the courts in the Pack’s season opener.
“I’ve been waiting for the first team match since the fall or basically whenever I signed, and the energy was super high; my teammates were supporting me,” Zampardo said. “I felt like I was just playing for a great group of people. And I thought my opponent played really well and we had very exciting points. Especially at the end, we had a lot of deuce points, and it felt great to clinch the match.”
With the win secured, the rest of the Wolfpack continued to grind out wins on their respective courts. Even though No. 27 Rencheli dropped her second set via tiebreak, the veteran hunkered down and took her third set superbreaker for a final score of 6-3, 6-7 (4-7), 1-0 (10-7).
Senior Gina Dittmann and freshman Kristina Paskauskas both won in straight sets to close out the match. Dittmann rallied her way to a calm 6-2, 6-4 win and Paskauskas wrapped up the sweep with a 6-4, 6-1 win on court six.
Like Zampardo and fellow freshman Gabriella Broadfoot, Paskauskas has benefitted from the years of experience and expertise that NC State’s group of seniors are passing on to her.
“The seniors have given a lot of advice, and they try to help us as much as they can because they’ve all gone through it,” Zampardo said. “And so I’ve definitely learned a lot. I’ve changed so much since the first day that we got here when I came early in the summer.”
Meanwhile, the Pack’s four seniors are also navigating through their own learning experiences, both in taking the freshmen under their wing and by taking the brunt of opposing teams’ best players.
“Our seniors, they have the experience, but they don’t necessarily have the experience of playing right up top, which is a new experience,” Secker said. “It’s the way it should be where the seniors kind of take the burden at the top of the lineup. So yeah, they are having to deal with some stuff for themselves.”
After sweeping the Mustangs, NC State looks towards a doubleheader on Saturday, Jan. 20, against Campbell at 1 p.m. and NC Central at 5 p.m.
